


till the world is mended

by martial_quill



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, House Planning, Houseless Spirits, Maglor Is Tom Bombadil, Schrodinger's Fëanor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 05:26:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17656769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/martial_quill/pseuds/martial_quill
Summary: Third Age 1989. Maglor and Goldberry, in the process of furnishing a house, encounter a houseless spirit. It's a bit less angry than the ones they intend to keep watch over.





	till the world is mended

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Quenta Narquelion](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12702726) by [bunn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunn/pseuds/bunn). 
  * Inspired by [For the First Time in Forever](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15307629) by [martial_quill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/martial_quill/pseuds/martial_quill). 



> This is set in the years directly after Angmar's second fall, when I think the barrow-downs go from burial sites to Literally Haunted by malignant ghosts. Maglor and Neniel have become very tired of fighting, and have decided that they want to live in the woods, and that they can maintain watch on the barrow-downs while they recover for a bit. 
> 
> This is not set in the main 'clearer than clear water' universe. Think of it as an alternate timeline, one where the principal difference is whether Fëanor went to the Halls of Mandos.
> 
> This story can be blamed squarely on bunn, who wrote a terribly sad thing about Tom Bombadil imprisoning Fëanor. I thought it would be either more cheerful or less if Maglor was Tom Bombadil. This was the result.

Maglor called for the horses to re-join him where he stood at the top of the hill, and nodded in satisfaction. The grass of the hill had now been cropped to a reasonable height. And now, he was willing to look at the house as a whole, and study the progress.

He turned and surveyed it. If he had not put the plot for a flower garden to the left of the long main room, perhaps it would have been a true rectangular shape, but they liked gardens, and so, gardens they would have. One for the kitchen, of course, at the back of the house towards the east, where it could soak up all the morning sunlight, for all the useful plants and herbs that he could use in his cooking. And another plot on the west side, one that he would fill with roses, pansies, marigolds and every other flower that he could think of. A garden where they could sit in the afternoons, and watch the sun sink down into the West, its light slanting through the treeline of the forest. Neniel had seen her childhood home become marred and darkened twice over, thanks to Sauron. The least Maglor could do was give her flowers, and a place to watch the sunset.

He was optimistic about the gardens. He’d even planted a cherry tree in the kitchen garden, one that would yield the yellow berries she’d been nicknamed for.

Nothing to be done about lilies except bring them up from the river, though. They wouldn’t grow in a garden on a hill.

They had both agreed on a guest room. Elladan and Elrohir would want to visit, and possibly Arwen too, so there were three mattresses neatly laid out on the floor of the guest room, with a fourth in reserve, in case any of their other relatives – like Neniel’s sisters, or nephew or niece – came along to visit. The main room had a long, low table that would fit seven people, built in case Dînen, Nurwë, Arwen, Elladan and Elrohir all decided to visit at once, and several arm-chairs for sitting in front of the fireplace. Maglor was quite proud of his work on the chimney. It had been some time since he had been required to do stonework like that, but it had turned out rather better than he expected. Of course, that was a typical thing when Goldberry got involved. If they lived together for another few thousand years, he might even get used to it.

And, of course, a kitchen. _His_ kitchen. No more negotiating with landlords, or lazing around to be fed by Elrond’s cooks…

Movement, in the corner of his eye; a shadowy flicker drawing him from his thoughts. He spun towards it, one hand already reaching for where his harp was stowed in its carrying case on his back–

Paused, thinking. It was a spirit, yes, but not one of the barrow-wights. It was not seething with rage and malice and hunger, was not reaching out to his spirit with greedy, prying fingers to try and twist Maglor out of shape. Instead, it flickered with a pulse that was almost familiar, and the way it moved was tentative.

He peered closer. It had been wounded; that much was obvious. He could see the whip-lashes on the spirit, almost like that of a released thrall. They had not usually been able to trust the thralls of Beleriand, but they had come back inside their bodies, with limbs that could reach for daggers and slip them between the ribs of a former friend. No danger of that, here. And Neniel was down by the Withywindle, her feet dangling in the water. She had turned to look over her shoulder, sensing his startlement, but she did not look alarmed, only curious. Her instincts for danger were keen, and after the Second Age, her sense of malice in a spirit was even better than his. She was better at distinguishing the darkness that came with grief-worn Middle-Earth from the gnawing, creeping malice of a wight.

The spirit had gone up to the walls of the house, and seemed to be flitting along the edges of it, with movements that were both quick and jerky, as though it were uncertain of itself, or uncertain of what it was feeling. It flitted around to the east wall of the house, to the kitchen gardens, and Maglor followed it, curious. Then it slipped inside the kitchen window, and it seemed to grow a little steadier as it did, as though it remembered more of itself.

Not malicious. He was certain of it. And it was worn, and tired, and clearly had been wounded, and so had he been, when Neniel had first dragged him home to meet her parents. Maglor took his harp out, let himself in through the kitchen door, and began to sing to the spirit, a gentle song of hospitality and welcome, in the current Westron of the day. He did not reach out with his own mind and spirit to touch it, but even the sound of his voice seemed to give it strength, and it gained more of a shape. Emboldened, Maglor continued to sing, liking the shape of the words as they fell, feeling the joy of the music fill him, and he sang louder. He rather liked this new rhythm of the Hobbit songs of Bree. He might keep using it.

The song fell into the flagstones of the cottage. Now he could hear Neniel joining him, sense her walking up the garden path, as her voice like clear spring soared over his in a harmony, her theme of healing and rest joining his song of hospitality. Clever, clever Goldberry! Hospitality, rest, healing, _giving_ , sung into the house, to counter the gnawing malice and bitterness of the barrow-downs, just like setting a circle of lamps to ward off shadow.  

Eventually, they came to the end of the song, when the sense of home, rest and healing had sunk into the flagstones around them. Now the spirit had a shape again, a discernible memory, and it beat with a flame like a hearth-fire at its centre, and wore a familiar face.

Maglor’s harp clattered to the floor; his knees abruptly refused to support him, but Neniel was there, catching him and easing him to the flagstones, her arm sliding around his waist.

“Who are you?” she demanded of the spirit.

The spirit wept, tears that were sad and joyful both, and would not answer her. It did not need to. Maglor now recognised the quick, flickering movements, the curiosity and appreciation for the stone-work, the need to investigate. If all of that had not been enough, now there was the face. Dark hair, grey eyes the same shape as Maglor’s own, high cheekbones, and a proud, straight nose.

Fëanor continued to weep, and Maglor’s eyes were burning, too, but Neniel had asked a question.

“River-daughter,” Maglor said, his voice trembling, “this is my father, Curufinwë Fëanáro Finwion.”

* * *

The living were not to speak with the dead. Fëanor had explained that to each of his sons, setting them gently on his knee while they were all quite young, in Telperion’s silvery light. The living were not to speak with the dead, and that was why their grandmother Míriel, who would have loved them dearly, had she lived, would not be able to speak with them, nor would she ever come home to them.

The living were not to speak with the dead. Mandos had decreed it so. But this was Middle-Earth, not Valinor, and a few thousand years with Neniel, with her Kindi attitudes, had rubbed off on him. Perhaps that was why Maglor had gotten up, set his harp down on the table, and sat down in one of the arm-chairs, gesturing for his father to follow suit. Fëanor was hesitant, but his spirit remembered how to sit. Neniel moved into the kitchen, and brought the kettle out, speaking words to the wood to set it ablaze, and then hung the kettle over the fire.  

Fëanor recoiled in the arm-chair as she spoke the words, and Maglor narrowed his eyes. That seemed very unlike his father. It had not even been a very strong burst of power from her. Neniel looked at them both, and her eyes were sad.

“Do you want me to leave you to talk?” she asked.

Maglor shook his head. _No! Stay, please._

He was not at all sure how he felt. He had been sure that Fëanor’s great spirit had gone to the Halls of Mandos. If it had not, then surely he would have intervened, moved to stop Maglor from casting his Silmaril into the sea. Surely…

Surely?

He didn’t know.

Neniel looked at him again, and walked over, perching on the arm of the arm-chair, and one of her hands resting on his shoulder. Ostensibly for balance, but he knew better. She was worried about him.

Fëanor was making no motion to speak. Perhaps he could not. But he could weep. Maglor had seen and heard him, earlier.

“Father? Can you speak?”

Fëanor looked at him, with eyes that held only remnants of their flame. But still, there were remnants, of the light of Aman, even though it seemed hidden by a shadowy miasma.

“I can,” Fëanor said, and Maglor’s eyes burned, because his father’s voice had once been so strong that the herald of Manwë had once bowed in response, but now, it had no more substance than a breeze.  “I can speak.” The words were said with a half-incredulous tilt to them, as if it had not been something that Fëanor himself knew.

“I am glad to hear it,” Neniel said, taking the whistling kettle off the fire, and pouring it into a mug. She pressed it into Maglor’s hand, and the smell of _athelas_ leaves steeped in water floated up from the mug. He shook his head at her. She hadn’t needed to do that. Where had she found the athelas, anyway? He did not remember including it in the plans for the garden...

Her eyes were sad, as she glanced at him, and then she turned back to Fëanor.

“I admit, I am surprised to see you here,” she said lightly. “Staying in Middle-Earth is quite common for my people, but not exactly typical of the Amanyar.” She paused, smiling wryly. “Then again, none of the histories ever described you as typical.”

Fëanor’s spirit brightened, as though with mirth, and when he spoke, the words were clear, even though the wounds stood out even darker against the lightening of his spirit. “I was in the east, for the long time, after the First Age. It was...not entirely pleasant. I encountered our old foe’s lackey.”

The world was abruptly loud and roaring in his ears, his eyes closing, as he remembered terror and flight from the mouth of the Gwathló, and singing up landslides to harry Sauron’s armies, the rage and grief racing through him for four aching, awful years.

He took a deep breath, the sweet smell of the athelas light and fresh in the air, still carrying the strength of Valinor, and he opened his eyes again. Neniel looked a little paler than normal, but she was still standing. She must have recognised the marks on Fëanor’s spirit instantly. Sauron’s wounds, the wounds that lingered on Celebrimbor, and she bore a wound like that as well. How had Maglor not seen it?

Fëanor looked at him, and smiled. “You were busy thinking about the garden, of course. It is very good to see _asëa aranion_ still grow in Middle-Earth.”

Neniel smiled, a little wanly, and Maglor set his mug down on the floor and opened his arms. She walked back to him, and settled side-long onto his lap, hooking her feet over the arm of the chair and wrapping an arm around him. He leaned his head against her throat, letting her hand come up and play with his hair. Touch helped; it helped remind her of the things of life. 

“The grandchildren gave me some cuttings,” she said. “It took a little work to hide it from you, but I wanted to keep it a surprise.”

Maglor huffed a laugh, and pressed a quick kiss to her lips, soft and chaste. “Thank you.” He glanced back at his father. Fëanor looked back, with something startled and wondering in his eyes.

“Grandchildren?” Fëanor asked. Neniel laughed from her position in Maglor’s lap, with the age of spring in her eyes, and a bright joy that made her sound young again.

“Grandchildren,” she confirmed, leaning back a little. “Elrond’s children call Maglor their Haru, and me their Daremmá, which is my people’s word for–”

“Grandmother, presumably derived from the Sindarin ‘emel’?” Fëanor said.

“Derived, no, but related. My father was counted among the Nelyar, and our language has some things in common with Sindarin, but he is Kindi – Avarin, I mean – and not a Sinda. _Dar_ , likewise, is related to _daer_ but we don’t favour that ‘ae’ sound as much.”

Fëanor and Neniel spoke of the development of languages for some time. His eyes were bright with interest, and yet, he was still not the father of Maglor’s youth, not the man around whom a room could orbit, not the orator who had sparked a people to infernos of defiance. He was not the same.  Maglor squeezed Neniel’s hips gently. She stood up from the chair, but did not step back to let him through. Her hands came up to rest against his chest.

 _He should stay here,_ she said to him, silently.

No doubt. No hesitation in her at all, despite all the trouble they’d had with spirits recently, and the fact that many had whispered even from the beginning that Fëanor was marred and flawed, whispers that had only mounted as the First Age wore on. It had only gotten worse from there: rumours about him caring only for his jewels, burning Ambarussa alive, that he had hated his sons. But there was no doubt in Neniel’s eyes.

_He is your father. He should be welcome to stay here, with us, at least for a while._

Young and beautiful, old and wise, her eyes clear as river-water in the sunlight, as she looked up at him gravely. Maglor leaned down and kissed her forehead, smiling, as he nodded.

“Yes, I think so too.” He looked at Fëanor. “Father? Would you like to stay here for a while?”

Fëanor hesitated, and his eyes were wary as they looked back at Maglor’s, like the eyes of a whipped horse. “Do you wish that I do?”

“I have wanted to meet you for a very long time,” Neniel said, looking at him. “And I heard that you wished to know more of the Avari.”

Maglor smiled, and stepped to the side, going into the kitchen to start lunch, as Fëanor spoke again. “In Aman, yes; for the way of life of the Avari was a great mystery to me. But now, I think I have one greater. How did you meet my son? And when did you marry him? He always told me that he was in love with his music.”

Maglor glanced back at her, and caught her looking back at him, her eyes now twinkling with amusement.

“Well,” she said, settling into the arm-chair. “I can’t say how it happened for him, of course.” Maglor coughed. “Or maybe I can, for some of it,” she amended, apparently unfazed by his interjection. “But on my end, it started one day when I lost my temper with my mother.”

Fëanor leaned in, as he always had when something intrigued him, and Maglor smiled and started setting the flour and oil on the bench.

No, this was not Atto, the laughing, whirlwind craftsman father of Maglor’s youth. But then, nor was it the Elf whose grief had threatened to destroy him and his people. Maglor was not Makalaurë, either, and Neniel was not the woman he had met by the estuary, all those years ago, when the Second Age was still in its infancy. But she sat in one of the arm-chairs, her golden hair spilling over her shoulders, and Fëanor was leaning into catch the words of the story like he once would have leaned forward to hear his sons explain an idea. They were none of them the same.

So be it. Change was the fate of everything in Middle-Earth, but that did not mean that things lost their shape entirely. For now, they were in the cottage, the defences were set upon the house, and Neniel's voice like the springtime was telling their story.  


**Author's Note:**

> The use of Goldberry and Neniel is perhaps a little inconsistent. This can be explained by the fact that Goldberry is a pet name used by her family, whereas Neniel is the name she is most commonly called. But I really don't care all that much, and anyway, anyone reading this is probably used to it. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
